About Lana Turner

Actress Lana Turner (born Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner) was one of America's most celebrated sex symbols during the 1940s and 1950s making over 50 films. Her tempestuous personal life -- seven marriages, a stable of lovers, and a very public murder scandal -- only increased her reputation as a larger-than-life screen and sex goddess.

Known as the "Sweater Girl," Lana Turner (like Betty Grable) was a popular pinup for GIs in World War II. After the war she became a genuine movie star, helped by her contract with powerful MGM Studios. Her best-known movies included The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and Peyton Place (1957). She became one of Hollywood's favorite legends for allegedly being "discovered" at Schwab's Drugstore on Sunset Boulevard. (Her official site claims the actual location was the Top Hat Cafe, across the street from Hollywood High.) Her notoriety was assured in 1958 when her lover, mobster Johnny Stompanato, was stabbed to death with a kitchen knife by her daughter Cheryl Crane. (The killing was later ruled justifiable homicide.) Turner was married to seven men, including bandleader Artie Shaw (http://www.geni.com/profile/index/6000000006823379981). In the 1980s she had a recurring role on the TV series Falcon Crest. Her autobiography, Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth, was published in 1982.

Turner's eyebrows were shaved off for her role in the 1938 film The Adventures of Marco Polo. The eyebrows never grew back, and thereafter Turner wore false eyebrows in public... Her birthdate is sometimes listed as 1920, not 1921. Turner claims in her autobiography that 1920 is an old error and that her birth certificate gives the date as 1921.